Tag Archives: Kenny Ortega

Each year we bring more than 30 high schools together to celebrate theatre arts education. See some of our favorite Jerry Herman Award Moments of 2017

Opening Number Rehearsals

Each participating school sends on male and one female participant to the Jerry Herman Awards to audition for the Best Actor/Actress category. In addition, these participants perform the opening number the night of the award show.

JHA participants begin working through the opening number music early Saturday morning.

Boys begin auditioning for opening number solos

Boys working through the opening number music

Girls take turns auditioning for opening number solos

Participants begin learning opening number choreography

The JHA welcome back Josh Strobl to help open the show

Participants listen closely to choreography instructions

Finalist, Sully Zack waits in the wings while his fellow participants learn a block of choreography

Jerry Herman Awards Night

The night of the show the Best Actor/Actress participants open the show and are immediately narrowed down to 6 finalists. From there, finalists perform one more time in front of our judges. The judges then select two winners move on to the Jimmy Awards competition in NYC. In addition to the 6 finalists’ solos, 12 category awards given away and a few schools are asked to perform a number from their production.

Participants pose for a quick photo with Music Director, Michael Orland, before the show begins.

2016 JHA Winner Josh Strobl returns to help open the 2017 JHA

Amaris Griggs on right performs her opening number solo.

Television Personality George Pennacchio emcee’s the Jerry Herman Awards

Finalist Ariana Prappas from San Marino High School performs Light in the Piazza

Finalist Cameron Vargas from Crescenta Valley High School performs Music of the Night

Finalist Brezae Weeks from HArts Academy performs I’m Here

Finalist Sully Zack from John Burroughs High School Performs Extraordinary

Finalist Brighton Thomas from John Burroughs High School performs With You

Finalist Robert Diehl from Mira Costa High School performs Oh What a Beautiful Morning

Palos Verdes Peninsula performs 76 Trombones from The Music Man

Palos Verdes Peninsula performs 76 Trombones from The Music Man

Mira Costa High School performs The Farmer and The Cowman from Oklahoma!

Mira Costa High School performs The Farmer and The Cowman from Oklahoma!

There is always an interesting collection of people working at the Hollywood Pantages at any given time. For this blog post we would like to introduce you to Halbert Hernandez from our Group Sales office. In 1992 Halbert was selected as an extra in a little Disney film called Newsies. We sat down with him to learn about his experience working on the film.

Question: How did you hear about the audition for the Newsies film and what was the audition process like?

Halbert Hernandez: I had a few friends that had already been cast in the movie as dancers and had heard that there was an open call for more news boys. They said you don’t have to dance which was good because I can’t dance. They just wanted to fill the screen with more news boys. So I went down to Universal the day of filming and met with Kenny Ortega. There were so many of us but they picked us based upon our look. It was really really quick. They didn’t ask us to dance or sing they just wanted a particular look.

Q: What was one of the most difficult things about being a Newsie?

Halbert: It actually wasn’t hard. It was so much fun. I was in my early 20’s and it was exciting to be on the lot filming something. It was neat to be surrounded by the dancers and a young Christian Bale. The days were long but it wasn’t hard because we were having fun and we were young.

Screenshot from the 1992 film Newsies. Halbert Hernandez in the top left corner.

Q: What was the most fun part of the movie filming?

Halbert: The most fun part was meeting Ann-Margret and working on the scene where her character sings to the news boys in the theatre. I was sitting up in the balcony on I think stage right. If you pause the movie you can see me. It was cool because she was singing to us as well as the boys on the floor but I remember she made eye contact with me. I also loved that scene because we had to run out of the theatre because the police were coming so people were climbing down the balcony and running out of the theatre. I didn’t climb down the balcony. I ran out the back door. It was exciting to meet her to see her. We were all told she had to be called Ann-Margret not Ann not Margret. Don’t talk to her unless she talks to you.

Screenshot in the balcony from the 1992 film Newsies. Halbert Hernandez pictured on the left.

Q: Did you get to speak with Ann-Margret?

Halbert: She talked to my group in the balcony. She kind of looked up and waved at us and said, “how are you guys doing?” and we said, “we’re doing great!” I also remember one very cool thing was watching her come onto the set in a Rolls Royce driven by her husband. She was wearing a turban on her head and a beautiful coat and she stepped right out of the car and directly into her trailer. Then three hours later she came into the theatre as that character with the red hair and the red dress and I was like oh wow. It was neat to see that transformation.

Ann-Margret in the 1992 film Newsies

Q: What is your favorite memory from the production?

Halbert: I think just being able to work with my friends. Someone I am still in touch with is Kevin Stea who is an incredible dancer that went on to work with Madonna. We were all pretty close so that’s what made it fun.

Q: How do you feel the stage production compares to the movie?

Halbert: I think the stage production is great. I think it is wonderful. They did a great job of taking the film and adapting it to the stage. There is a lot of energy and dancing just like the movie.

Q: Did it bring back any memories for you?

Halbert: Yes it did. Hearing the music really took me back to the Universal lot. After seeing it at the Pantages I went back and watched the movie. Seeing myself in a few shots I couldn’t believe how young I was.

Q: Do you have any other thoughts about your experience?

Halbert: It was a really great time. I am thankful to have the memories and I am thankful to Kenny Ortega for giving me the opportunity to be a Newsie. It’s nice to see it has taken a life of its own and gone from film to stage and now they are filming the stage production so people can see it in theatres when it’s released.

The stage was set. The players, clad in a mixture of rehearsal tights and hoodies, were locked in on the task at hand. Actor Sage Cobos idly twirled a plunger like a baton. Their 45 minutes of on-stage preparation time were dwindling away, and the company of de Toledo High School’s “Urinetown” still had vocal warm-ups to execute and a run through to run through.

Sage Cabos (right) directs the “Urinetown” cast with his plunger

The actual performance was not due to start for another two hours, but the company’s director spoke up with a final note of advice/warning.

“If you do not dance this to the point of exhaustion,” Diane Feldman told her ensemble, “I will seek vengeance upon you.”

The line may sound threatening, but Feldman – de Toledo’s drama, musical theater and vocal instruction teacher — knows her company, and nobody was intimidated. If a segment of your high school production is going to “graduate” from an auditorium or gymnasium to a one night showcase on the historic Hollywood Pantages Theatre, every member of your company will need to bring his or her A-game.

Feldman and the De Toledo “Urinetown-ers” did, and that’s why they were furiously blocking out the number “Run, Freedom, Run” which opened the second act of the 5th Annual Jerry Herman High School Musical Theatre Awards of Los Angeles. De Toledo, located in West Hills, was one of four schools selected to restage a portion of the musical staged during the year during the awards show.

The Archer School for Girls performs a medley from “Spring Awakening”

Joining de Toledo were The Archer School for Girls performing a rocking medley from its all-female production of “Spring Awakening,” Oaks Christian School’s rendition of “We’ve got Magic to do” from “Pippin” and Village Christian School’s tap-happy, chimney sweep-laden medley from “Disney’s Marry Poppins.” Each of the four productions ended up capturing at least one Jerry Herman Award during the evening.

Oaks Christian High School performing the opening number from “Pippin”

Village Christian High School performing a medley from “Disney’s Mary Poppins”

Those performance numbers barely constituted an appetizer on the Herman Awards’ menu of entertainment. Think you’ve seen casts of thousands represented on the Pantages stage? How about 50 young men and women belting out selections of songs from “42nd Street,” “A Chorus Line” “Hercules,” and “Dreamgirls” during the production’s opening number – “One Night. Once Chance”?

Jerry Herman Award’s opening number “One Night One Chance”

And that was just for starters during an evening full of celebrity presenters and awardees across all the theatrical disciplines. Three young men and three young women were selected from that group of 50 to perform a solo number for a panel of judges, with a trip to New York to participate in the National High School Musical (AKA The Jimmys) awarded to the best actor and best actress winners. During the auditions held two days before the event, each of the 50 actors had their work reviewed by industry veteran judges including McCoy Rigby Entertainment Services producer Cathy Rigby and hit-making director-choreographer Kenny Ortega.

Participants wait their turn to audition in front of the judges.

More than 30 public and private high schools from Conejo Valley to Orange County submitted productions for consideration across a variety of performance and technical categories. School administrators filled out forms at the beginning of the school year. The Hollywood Pantages sent volunteer adjudicators to all of the performances. In the spring, a team at the Pantages, working from the adjudicators’ notes and a DVD of the production, determined the nominees.

For two days leading up the show, the best actor and actress nominees auditioned before the panel of five judges. In sessions that lasted 10-15 minutes, each of the nearly 50 nominees got to sing one or two songs in front of Ortega, Rigby and fellow judges John Bowab, Lewis Wilkenfeld and Nancy Dussault. Following the audition, the judges offered encouragement and constructive professional feedback.

For Hamilton High School senior Emma Griffone, getting a taste of what a Broadway audition will be like was an invaluable experience.

“It’s so important,” she said. “Between the long rehearsal process we had this weekend and the auditions, it’s really great to know what it’s like to walk into an audition. The whole rehearsal process was almost like Chorus 101 for me, learning how to wait, how to stand there and to put together a number in a really short period of time. I think it’s really a lot about building your confidence about standing out but also working together on a collaborative experience.”

Emma Griffone (right) in rehearsals for the opening number

As participants and show producers continuously noted, opportunities for young artists to strut their stuff are rare. School arts programs are in constant jeopardy of losing funding forcing high school drama teachers and students alike to be creative in order to keep interest in the performing arts alive. The validation of a sold out theater full of students, teachers, parents, mentors and working theater folks can work wonders.

Wilkenfeld, the artistic director of the Cabrillo Music Theatre, knows this only too well. Working with many young performers at the start of their careers, Wilkenfeld joined the Jerry Herman Awards judging panel in 2015 in part because he understood the importance of keeping that spark alive.

“They were bussing us to shows when I was a kid, and now they don’t even do that,” Wilkenfeld said. “To see these kids falling in love with the arts, it’s keeping them focused. It’s keeping them in love with school. Even if they’re not a math whiz, even if their English theater bores them and they don’t understand science, they’re still coming to school for this.”

Broadway veteran Gregory Jbara echoed the sentiment. Jbarra attended the Herman awards both to present the award for Best Supporting Actor and to support the efforts of his son, Zachary, who is completing his first year at Hamilton High School’s performing arts magnet.

“I realize how lucky these kids are that there’s a situation like this where they get to be celebrated,” said Jbara, a Tony Award-winner for “Billy Elliott.” “I’m proud to be in the company of a community that says ‘This is important, and we will back you.’”

While only two performers will emerge from the experience bound for New York and a shot at the Jimmys, the general consensus among the participants is that every nominee – on stage or otherwise – is a winner.

“I don’t feel like it’s a competition at all,” said Cobos a leading actor candidate for de Toledo’s “Urinetown. “(All the nominees) rehearse for eight hours together. Everyone is so attentive and happy to be singing together. They’re singing, harmonizing, dancing – all the things we love to do. You just hear some of these kids’ voices and you think, ‘Oh my God, I want to sing with you!’”

Participants creating new friendships over lunch break on rehearsal day

“That we even managed to get here was a huge hurdle for us,” added Verdugo Hills High School Orchestra Director Victoria Lopez whose production of “Hairspray” was nominated for best orchestra. “We’re sharing a stage with the top schools in and around southern California. That in itself is a big award for us. This is a learning experience, and it will motivate the students to keep working and to keep trying to raise our standards.”

As celebratory as the entire event is, the event is not without its share of tension. For the judges, who spend concentrated time with nearly 50 hopeful actors and actresses ages 14 to 17, the auditions are a mixture of boostering, reassurance and maybe even scouting talent for future productions. Future Disney Channel star Ryan McCartan won the 2011 Jimmy Award for best actor before moving on to such projects as “Royal Pains,” “Liv and Maddie” and the upcoming TV adaptation of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” directed by Ortega.

“It’s a great growing opportunity for every single participant,” Ortega said. “Every single kid that comes in here, they’re open and they’re thirsty. Some have never been in a situation like this before, standing in front of five people in the industry that are making a choice as to whether they’re going to move forward. We do our best to try to get them to relax, let them know ‘This is your home. We’re in your space.’”

Easier said than believed, sometimes. During her audition, San Marino High School’s Lauren Hickey – her hair still sporting the dye job from playing Audrey in SMHS’s spring production of “Little Shop of Horrors” – confessed to experiencing some nerves. After she displayed a bell-like soprano voice unleashing the satiric wistful “Somewhere That’s Green,” Hickey fielded an assortment of suggestions from the judges — be proud of your furniture covered in plastic, convey your amazement at owning a “big 12-inch (TV) screen.”

Lauren Hickey (pictured in stripes) rehearsing for the opening number

“Walking into this room, it might feel kind of cold,” Ortega told Hickey, “but you went somewhere with this song. I would like you to just shake it out, trust yourself, believe in the people who know what you have and go to that place where you went when you did this on stage. Bring us there.”

Hickey performed the song a second time, incorporating the notes, and eliciting a parting “brava!” from the judges. That same evening, the judges heard a completely different rendition of “Somewhere That’s Green” from Canyon High School’s Abby Heywood whose character evoked comparisons to actress Megan Mullally. Heywood’s portrayal of “Little Shop’s” Audrey was markedly different from Hickey’s and the actress received a completely different set of notes.

Two nights later at the awards ceremony, Hickey advanced to the finals, joining fellow actresses Griffone and Antonia Vivino of Santa Susana High School. The three qualifying actors were Chaminade High School’s Alejandro Navarro, Zane Sipotz of Los Angeles County High School of the Arts (LACHSA) and Joshua Strobl of John Burroughs High School.

Having gone through the Minneapolis Spotlight Awards five years earlier en route to winning the 2011 Jimmy, McCarten said he understood how the six finalists were feeling backstage as they prepared for the final vote. “They are freaking out right now,” he told the audience before presenting the No Small Parts award to de Toledo’s Brennen Klitzner.

And “freaking out” covered the range of emotions, agreed Griffone who said she spent a substantial portion of her time backstage waiting for the final award announcement pacing or slamming back glasses of water to keep from getting dehydrated. Griffone, who will attend Northwestern University in the fall, capped off her high school musical career with a mighty rendition of Evillene’s song “No Bad News” from “The Wiz.”

Emma Griffone (right) and Josh Strobl (left) give the performance of their lives to move onto the Jimmy Awards in NYC.

As the Herman Awards came to an end, the news was good for Griffone who won the Best Actress award. Strobl took the Best Actor prize. De Toledo’s “Urinetown” was awarded the Best Production.

Kenny Ortega presents the award for Best Production to the cast of de Toledo’s “Urinetown”

“For me, what’s important is not the awards,” de Toledo’s Feldman said. “It’s the fact that somebody came in and said ‘We like the story you told.’ It’s about being here collectively with all these people who are here for the same reason: because theatre speaks to them, because theater empowers them, because theater enlightens them, because we love it.”

Evan Henerson has been writing about theater in Los Angeles for more than 20 years. He was the Theater writer and critic for the Los Angeles Daily News for nine years and has written for Playbill Online, Backstage, American Theatre and Stage Directions.You can read his reviews on TheaterMania, CurtainUp and Examiner.com.

Theatre and arts education in high schools is an integral part of young adults coming into their own. Each year, the Hollywood Pantages hosts the Jerry Herman High School Musical Theatre Awards with one goal: to constructively support local high schools with their drama programs. With the awards happening this Sunday, May 22nd, we are officially in full “Jerry Herman Mode” as we call it. There are three main sections to go through when prepping for a ceremony of this size.

Adjudication process

At the beginning of each school year we begin the sign-up process for the Jerry Herman Awards for the following spring. Schools must fill-out an intent to participate form and provide the name of the show being performed and performance dates. Meanwhile, we at the Marketing department meet with the volunteer adjudicators to sign-up and prepare them for the shows ahead.

Each participating school also fills out an informational sheet. This lets us know which categories they can qualify for in terms of nominations. The Categories include: Scenic Design, Lighting Design, Costume Design, Orchestra, Ensemble/Chorus, Musical Staging/Choreography, Musical Direction, Technical Crew, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, “No Small Parts”, and Best Production.

Once we have all of the information from a school, our adjudicators visit each theatre to watch the productions. Each adjudicator then fills out an evaluation form – scoring each category individually from 1-10 and the production as a whole. They also have the opportunity to fill out a “notes” section where they may say anything that the survey may not have given them the chance to.

Nomination Process

After a school’s performance has completed, they are required to send a either a DVD or digital copy of their show along with a program. This is when we here at the theatre bump our involvement up to the next level. Our small but mighty team closely watches each production, taking copious notes of our own, along with having the adjudicators’ documents right by our sides.

As we watch, each school is given one over-all production score and also individual scores for each award category. The way we calculate these scores is easy: we add up all the numbers in each category and divide it by the number of adjudicators that saw the performance. Simple, median math. The schools with the highest scores are nominated for their respective categories and, naturally, the highest score is the winner.

Audition Process

This is the part of the process that many people scrunch their eyebrows at. An audition process for an awards show? But haven’t you seen and scored all the productions based on all categories? Yes, we have, but that category does not include leading actor and actress. The process for that particular category is a little bit different.

At the beginning of each season, each school is given a list of qualifying lead roles provided by the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, and then each school must choose one leading lady and one leading man to audition for the best actor/actress category. They attend one of two nights of auditions, bringing their headshot and two pieces of sheet music (one from the part they played in their production, and one of their choosing) and perform in front of our panel of judges. This year includes John Bowab, Kenny Ortega, Nancy Dussault, Kathy Rigby, and Lewis Weintraub.

Once the two nights of auditions are complete, the judges narrow the participants down to six finalists. On the night of the Jerry Herman Awards Ceremony the six finalists are announced. Each finalist will sing the song from the part they played in their production during the Jerry Herman Awards as a final audition. During intermission the judges come together to decide which leading lady and which leading male will win and move onto New York City for the Jimmy Awards.

What are the Jimmy Awards you ask? Well that’s a blog post for another time.

For ticket information about the Jerry Herman Awards Sunday, May 22 CLICK HERE

A few weeks back we had the honor of watching one of Broadway’s most talented and well known leading ladies get her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Many of Kristin’s friends and family were there including Dove Cameron and a special appearance by her parents all the way from Oklahoma. Speeches were given by Carol Burnett and Kenny Ortega on Kristin’s behalf as well as cheers and from her adoring fans. Here are the photos we didn’t post to Facebook.